Search Posts
"I hate to be a downer here, but if we want answers about what's been happening here we should be trying to take Slade alive." Having given as much of a suggestion as he's going to, Curly turns around to find the Zombie shambling away from the battle. "This one was already dead though. Seems like we should help return it to that state."
Curly swears as Slade attempts to whisk the witch away from the battle. Ignoring zombie shambling off, Curly steps around the feral cowboy by his feet who's still taking swipes at him for a clear shot at the retreating figures.
"Don't let them get away if you can help it!"
Curly takes another step back to open up another shot at the lupine menace directly in front of him. As he fires he calls out to his companions, "Leave these two to me. Focus your fire on Slade and that woman! They need to go down before whatever's going to happen next happens!"
Caught off by being ripped by claws instead of shot with a gun for once, curly staggers back as he reloads and take a shot at the crazed man in front of him, ignoring the lumbering corpse for the moment.
Seeing MyInyrne's eyes the same glowing red as the man risen from the dead and the wolf from earlier, Curly hesitates no longer and let's his rifle's fire at Slade announce the start of the fight.
Curly, along with Antonio and Angle eyes run towards the screams and the fire, aware of the guards and ducking to avoid them as they can. They arrive outside the light cast by the fire, but close enough to see in time to see McInyrne frk.inish his blood-dripping feast and then the corpse begin to rise. After the wolf earlier, Curly is less easily shocked than he would have been yesterday and immediately gets to wo Waving at his friends to the head to the left, the former Cavalry Officer takes his Rifle in both hands, aiming it towards the fire and those in it, and jogs around the fire to the right for about 20 yards, before stepping in towards the horrifying throng. Trusting that those who were sneaking in as well as those who came with him have had a chance to get into range, he steps into the ring of light and raises his voice above the chanting and the drumming to shout out a challenge. "Slade McInyrne, in the name of all that's holy, what the living HELL are you doing? As an acting sheriff's deputy I ORDER you and your men to stand down this instant and start explaining yourselves!" With his rifle currently aimed directly at McInyrne Curly's index finger gently starts to squeeze the trigger, ready to fire if anything unexpected happens. Because this is going to go well for sure. Hope all the others have had a chance to find good positions.
"Hmmm, that can't be a good thing." Curly peers through the evening gloom trying to locate the source of the scream as he grabs his rifle and prepares to move.
Curly nods, "We'll keep an ear out for you, but I hope to see you again before we hear anything alarming. Good luck in there!"
Sorry to see you go, but it's good to hear that it's not the forums that are the issue, and just life being life. Hopefully we'll see you again when things calm down! @Angle Eyes, Vrog was Henry in our game.
"I'm comfortable with that if you are, though I'd be more comfortable if it was at least two of you. No offense intended to Yahvev for not counting him, or her I suppose, I'm not an expert with wolves, but I'd like two people that could come back and tell us if something went south. Being alone behind enemy lines is seldom a better idea than being part of a small team from everything I've read. "Oh, and on the off chance that something goes wrong, is there any sort of signal you could give for us to come and assist if necessary?"
I've taken the average as well. As far as money goes, our group got a minor bounty ($50 each) for some bank robbers, but presumably if we were going to spend that we would have done it before heading out to the ranch. It's not burning a hole in my pocket just now.
Curly whistles in awe as they approach. "Well now, this day is full of surprises. Can't say I was expecting this at all. What do we think, still have those of us with temporary badges ride up directly and ask some questions as a distraction or do we want to stick together and try something on the sneakier side? Can't say I'm all that sneaky, but I'm willing to try if that's what we prefer. Or maybe something else altogether?"
Curly grins as Percy mentions the chance of facing men in badges. "Well now, this whole wolf with the glowing red eyes thing I'm at a bit of a loss for, but badges are something I can help with. As I was saying when we rode in it just so happens that we're Angle Eyes, Antonio and I happen to be acting with badges as well just now and, never having met McInyre we haven't had the chance to be bought by him. Should a conflict end up being unavoidable we might be able to leverage that somehow." Glancing at those that came with him, he continues, "I'll be bold and speak for my partners here and say that you've convinced us all that you're not the aggressors here. That ... beast or whatever it was certainly doesn't hurt your case. "Seems to me like we need some more information about what's happening to make a good next decision and I can't think of anywhere other than McInyre's ranch that we're going to find that. Whatever else we do I think we need to be heading there soon. I reckon that the ranch hands will have returned and told their story by now, so it'd be entirely natural for those of us that aren't know to them to show up on behalf of the sheriff and get their side of the story. That seems like it could be used give the rest of you some amount of distraction to poke around a bit and get the lay of the land if you'd be up to it."
Dropping his act as the beast turns tail and runs Curly shouts to the others, "That thing's probably too dangerous to let loose if we have any chance to stop it here. Can't have it raiding other farms and killing someone." Curly reloads the rifle once again as he moves to get as clear a shot as he can with the rifle at the retreating creature.
Curly continues to make fearful noises to get the wolfs attention, making a show of slipping briefly as he moves to ensure a clear shot and reload his rifle, but recovering his footing and firing off a shot from 30 feet away.
Curly shouts out "We've got a giant wolf here. Looks like it got someone's horse!" As he shouts he's moving back, getting a good line of fire, but making a show of being scared and a target who's running away, taking a shot as he goes, goading the wolf to come at easy prey.
Curly moves to join Angle Eyes as quietly as he can, rifle in his hands. He stays close to the ranch house to avoid any traps he knows are out there somewhere.
As he approaches the gunslinger, he sees the hulking wolk-like figure in the barn ahead of them and without thinking lets out a barely audible gasp.
"Flanking it is. We'll head around the other side, and thanks for the heads up about the traps. Don't need to stumble into those just now. Give a hollar if you run into anything surprising before you hit the back of the manor, otherwise we'll see you there." With a wave to the others who came with him, Curly heads in the opposite direction that Perry and Culver are heading, making his way towards the back of the house on that side.
I'm switching to this avatar just so we don't have two characters with the same one. Sorry for any confusion for those that have been with me in the other thread!
Curly's head turns towards the house as the howl rolls across the ranch. "So that's not normal around here I hope. I know you've got your issues with me, but I'm going to be getting my gun now anyhow. I don't care to meet whatever made that sound unarmed." Curly steps to Shemp and takes his rifle from the saddle. Seeing Perry moving towards the house already Curly calls to the others form the ranch. "You know this ground better than we do. Shall we stick together or try to catch whatever's making that noise in a pincer maneuver? It's light enough out we should be able to recognize each other and not have too much danger of crossfire, and having multiple lines of fire from different angles could prove an advantage if they're feasible."
Curly chuckles some at the level of threat he apparently represents and dismounts, making a show of moving slowly. His head full of curly hair fits the name he's given the remaining defenders of Serenity Ranch. Dressed in nondescript, functional clothing he's neither particularly tall or short, and no one would call him handsome. His eyes do sparkle with something akin to mischief, though his expression is serious. As he reaches the ground he pats his horse and then walks over to kneel at the blood spatter that Culver had indicated. "I see, cattle rustling first and then the murder later. That makes more sense. Angle Eyes had a story in mind that you might tell which matches that closely enough." Curly gestures towards the stoic, gunslinger still scanning the area looking for threats. Curly stands to look at those assembled before him and nods. "So here's the good news. The sheriff deputized us a couple days back, so at this point we represent the law in this matter. We're also inclined to figure out what happened rather than just make problems disappear. Most of the story that you're telling makes reasonable sense. If you were responsible for killing I can't see a motive for bringing McInyre's men in. They're just going to blame it on you and you get the suspicion of the law all the same. It's possible you're up to no good and just a couple steps of reasoning beyond me, but I'm going to give one of us credit here and assume that's not true." Sighing, Curly looks a the bloody patch and then back to the group. "The bad news is that we got no chance to talk to the men that were locked up at all. The sheriff, after deputizing us, said that time wasn't a huge issue, so we were resting up after a gun-fight with some bank robbers gone, well, let's say less well than it could have. By the time we got around to asking some questions the men had been released. We've taken this job because it seems like it's one that probably needs doing, but if I read you right, our faith in the sheriff might be about the same as yours just now. "Having said that, you talked about not taking the law into your own hands. Funny thing is that right now, as I just said, we are the law. You make a convincing enough case and there's no reason that we can't work together all nice and legal like to deal with the issues you seem to have. Have you got any evidence about the story you're telling? I don't suppose the cow's still around, and you've probably buried whatever bodies resulted from the raid. I'm a bit confused by what you're saying about the eyes on the cattle rustlers, so I'd like a bit more detail there. It wasn't just a trick of the light of the moon or anything?"
Curly listens to the reply and as he does so, his eyebrow rises. "Now that's interesting in a couple ways. The sheriff didn't mention anything about cattle rustlers and you don't seem to be mentioning anything about a murder, so either I'm slower than normal today, something's missing in that account or the sheriff had the wrong information on his end." Glancing back at his companions, Curly shrugs. "There really wasn't any chance this was going to be simple was there?" Turning back to Henry and the others in front of him Curly scratches his chin while he thinks and then goes on. "From the sound of it, you're a bit suspicious of strangers just now. Well, or maybe just me. I wonder if you'd mind if I dismount, so I'm not talking to you from way up here, and we could sit down and talk about what happened when Mr. McInyrne's men came through? "No sudden moves on my part, I just want to hear the whole story. From how you said it, I'm guessing you and your friends here did the giving when they got what was coming to them, but I know that the men ended up in jail and not the ground. I might be optimistic, but I'm going to take that as auspicious."
Curly tips his hat to Henry. "Good to meet you Henry. I guess right now you'd say that we're working for the sheriff, though that's a very recent development. Thing is, the Sheriff didn't have all that much for us to go on, so we're kind of light on details beyond the murder having happened at this point. We were hoping we could talk with the ones who brought a group of suspects in to see if they could shed a bit more light on the situation."
"Good morning, friend! I'm sad to say that we're here for business rather than pleasure. The good sheriff in town seems to be under the impression that there's been a murder or a certain Englishman John Cordon, but, if I'm to be quite honest, the sheriff doesn't seem particularly well informed about the situation. We're here to see if we can't sort out what's actually happened oh so many days ago, and were hoping we could interview some of the men here at Serenity Ranch. "Name's Curly, to whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"
Once on the road, Curly waits until the party is well out of town before turning to the others and trying to sort out some plans ahead of time. "So I don't know about the rest of you, but the Sheriff there fails to inspire me at this point. I figure that we can poke into this a bit, but at as of right now I can't say that I'm invested enough in this particular case to take as many shots as I did on our last one. I suppose it depends on what Cordon's men have to say, assuming they're even still there now that he's passed on and the pay might be in question, but this caper seems like it can't end well."
After waiting to hear what the sheriff has to say to Angel Eyes, Curly nods and looks out at the horizon. "Well, I guess that's enough to go by to start with and we'll work on filling in some details as we talk to the various parties. I suppose that starting at the Serenity ranch like the Sheriff wants works as well as anything else. Unless anyone has a reason to wait I say we set off now and see what the ruckus was all about."
"If you think you can be sufficiently sinister to play the other part, I can be the friendly one here. It'd be good to ask some questions, and I like to think that there's some good to appeal to in almost everyone, despite our last encounter." Curly stretches and feels his recent wounds. There's an ache, but today is the first day that the prospect of taking Shemp out for a ride hasn't been shudder-inducing. "Do we have any stops we want to make before the Serenity Ranch? And, er, do we know which side of the conflict it's on? Were the ones in lockup from there, or the ones that brought them into lockup?"
Curly makes his way down to the main room of the Silver Spur and frowns out the window at the rain. Looking around to see who made it down before him he makes his way over to the table and smile through a wince at his companions while he sits down. "So I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm still sore as all get out. What do we think we want to try first? I don't know that I've got any reason to trust the word of anyone involved in what the Sheriff was trying to hire us on for yesterday. I don't know that I think we should even trust the Sheriff given his lax attitude. I don't think that we should let this sit too long if we're going to be involved though."
Here's to the end being in sight! Given our posting rate as a group jut now I think we'll make do with what you can get us. Best of luck and let us know if we can help in any way!
Curly nods. "I can't say that a good nights rest sounds anything other than lovely just now, so maybe tomorrow's the right day to start to ask questions. Is there anything else you'd need from us before then? Anything we should know before we start to poke around and ask some questions? These sound like serious charges and I'd hate to start stepping on toes that don't like to be trod upon if I could avoid it with a little knowledge ahead of time."
What sort of healing have he had a chance to do since the last encounter? How quickly do you want us healing in this campaign in general?
Curly nods to the Sherrif, "I see. And have you heard the stories of the ones here? I think, if you don't mind, we'd love to talk to them for a bit, see what they have say. After that last job I wouldn't mind if we can't sort this one out without the gunplay, and information's how we can start doing that." As he talks Curly rubs at one of his recent gunshot wounds without seeming to think about it.
"Well, I'm not opposed to temporary deputy work, and if the other option in town right now might be to ask the Pinkertons I can't help but think that we could handle things in a more discerning fashion. Count me in, Sheriff!" Curly take a good look at the men in the cells, trying to assess their condition. "How well did you know the men who dragged this lot in? They from around here or new to town?"
"It's the least I can do. I'll be sure to send them this way if I get a chance. Until then you and your people here stay safe and healthy! Hopefully those bandits are the only excitement you'll have this season." Curly limps out to join the others, getting Shemp ready for the ride back to Copperpoint.
As the posse is preparing to head on out, Curly talks a bit more to the Doctor. "I can't thank you enough for that patch work. Didn't imagine there was any chance I'd be this close to healthy this soon after making a fool move like that back at the Saloon. I owe you one. I'm just sorry that the townfolk who that gang had their way with didn't manage to come through themselves. Is there anything we can do to send help this way after we've turned in the bodies for the bounty? Any services that have been disrupted that people here would be counting on?"
As the mixture kicks in Curly's eyes open and he starts to sit up before slumping back down and giving a sigh. "Interesting days indeed." Looking around the office and trying to get his bearings he hears Antio's assurances that the townsfolk are safe for now, and assumes that the berry juice Angel Eyes is referring to must be the reason he's awake at all now. "I owe you an appology Antonio. All that talk about words being our best weapon assumed that we'd be dealing with reasonable folks. Folks in a tight spot, but ones we could talk down. Clearly I had that wrong and from the bullet hole in your shirt it looks like being wrong caused you more pain that it was worth. I'm glad that the rest of you managed to clean up the mess though. You must have if I'm able to wake up here." Curly spots Shemp's nose mashed up against the window and he smiles. "I see that good old Shemp got through it OK as well. But tell me, did we establish what it was the outlaws were doing here? It looked like some of the townfolk were already in bad shape by the time we arrived. Was there something here they were looking for or was it just this town's bad luck to be in their path?"
So without knowing what you've got in mind, let me say that I'm happy to have this experience (with the gunshot wounds and whatever cure you've got in mind) change Curly. If there's something that I should be tweaking in my RP just shoot me a PM and I'll incorporate it!
Curly sweats some and moans from time to time, but offers no opinions about what sorts of medicine he might prefer or how me might feel about the local native people and their ways. As Curly was dragged over to the doctor's office, Shemp followed. The horse is now hanging around outside the office and occasionally tries to puts his nose up against the window, trying to see what's happening inside.
Curly moans a bit as he's moved, but never comes close to regaining consciousness.
Just posting that I'm about, but don't have much to contribute other than bleeding in the game thread just now. Getting a level or two in just for the HP buffer is going to be handy for this adventure I'm thinking. We'll see if I make it out of this bit or not!
Curly bleeds a bit more on the floor in next to the the Bandit Leader who has joined him there.
Curly bleeds a bit more on the floor in front of the Bandit Leader.
Go get em everyone! Hopefully drawing that first round of attacks will help!
As the bandit leader raises his gun to fire, Curly takes another desperate stab with his dagger, this time aiming for the arm rather than the gun itself thinking a larger target might be easier to hit.
As he makes the strike he's spun around by the force of a shot to his shoulder, and then at another shot to the belly he keels over starts bleeding all over the saloon floor.
"Well, if life weren't interesting it'd be no fun at all now would it." As the gunman approaches to help him towards the chairs being set up in the middle Curly dashes the rest of his whiskey in the bandit's face, pulls out his dagger and makes a lunge to try to knock the gun out of his hand.
When Curly sees the shadow of his companion start to cross the threshold of the swinging door he quickly grabs the first whiskey and downs it in a single shot. By the time the gunslinger is through the doors Curly has the second in his hand and takes a small sip. It's not a matter of savoring it, as there's not time for that, but this one he tries to taste. "Yep, some days bring all sorts of interesting things alright."
Curly takes in the scene around him as Antonio talks with the leader. When the drinks are brought up he moves towards the bar a couple seats away who he assumes is the leader of the bandits. "A whiskey would be perfect right now, yes. I won't be able to buy more than a couple glasses, but they'd sure do me some good after the day we're having." With a casual show Curly slowly pulls ten dollars out of his coat from a pocket and sets it down on the table. He ignores the tension that might arise during this action and then turns to the large man. "Did you ever have to spend two hour chasing down spooked horses after some fool greenhorn was crazy enough to ride right over a rattlesnake nest? Riding into town here I thought that was going to be the kicker for the day for me for sure." Shaking his head and the chuckling Curly looks around. "Some days just bring all sorts of interesting things, wouldn't you say? Don't know what's going on here, but yeah, a couple whiskeys right about now would do the trick just right."
Curly flashes Antonio a smile. In a quiet voice he says, "No pressure to join me in there at this point, but I imagine that should you choose to come with our words will be the more potent weapons for the encounter. By the way I've seen you use your words I think you'd have a plenty potent weapon indeed."
"Well that's a friendlier welcome, and as Antonio says I am a bit parched." Curly makes a show of walking over to the horses and leaving his rifle with Shemp. As me passes Angle Eyes hidden around the corner of the barber shop he speaks under his breath. "Figure I'll go in with Antonio and get the lay of the land. Might as well try to get some intel and pick an advantageous spot for the confrontation rather than going in with no knowledge. If you're hanging back then give us some sort of signal if anyone else starts heading in to the saloon." When the rifle is safely stored Curly leads Shemp west side of the saloon and makes sure the horse knows to wait there unless called for. He then heads to Antonio and offers to let him lead the way in.
|
